


tired with joy

by finkpishnets



Category: The Fire's Stone - Tanya Huff
Genre: Couch Cuddles, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Found Family, M/M, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:17:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8877454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finkpishnets/pseuds/finkpishnets
Summary: It hadn’t taken as long as Darvish had expected for the three of them to settle into Chandra’s homestead.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chibi1723](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi1723/gifts).



> My love for this book is real and overwhelming, and looking through this year's letters, I couldn't help the urge to write a small Treat based on your midwinter night prompt. I hope you enjoy, and Happy Yuletide ♥︎

 

The light glances off of the coin between Aaron’s fingers, dancing over his knuckles as he stares out of the window, knees tucked under his chin and hair bright beneath the spill of moonlight and flickering candles. The ink from Darvish’s quill drips onto parchment and he silently curses his drifting attention even as his eyes refuse to stray from the man in front of him, calm and content and _his_.

The flames in the fireplace surge back to life as Chandra waves a hand at them, mouth unconsciously shaping the words of the book she’s lost to, and Aaron turns an amused glance on her before meeting Darvish’s gaze. He should be embarrassed at being caught staring, he’s sure, but Darvish gave up on embarrassment a long time ago, and besides, he and Aaron have few secrets between them anymore.

Aaron smiles, and Darvish feels his own mouth answering without his consent, the ink from his quill completely erasing the letter to his brother he’s been writing for the past hour and seeping into the wood beneath. He spares a fleeting thought for the poor desk and then resigns it to Chandra’s magic or the log store when Aaron’s eyelids flutter shut and he stretches his arms over his head in a yawn.

“You should sleep if you’re tired,” Darvish says, breaking the easy silence they’ve fallen into. Chandra glances up, chewing on the wick of her thumb and blinking back to reality as Aaron shakes his head.

“I’m fine,” he says, jumping down from the windowsill. The arms of his woollen shirt slip over his hands, too long where Aba had misjudged Aaron’s height and cooed apologies even as Aaron had clung to it and forbidden her from changing a thing, eyes glistening.

“Hmm,” Chandra hums, tucking her blanket closer around her feet and looking at Aaron with narrowed eyes.

“ _Honestly_ ,” he says. “I’m just…dozy.”

“Dozy?” Chandra echoes, frowning, and Aaron huffs a laughs at her confusion.

“Dozy,” Aaron says. “Sleepy but not tired. _Relaxed_.”

“Oh,” Chandra says, nodding like it makes perfect sense. She nods pointedly at the sofa opposite hers and Aaron smiles and goes where he’s told, reclining back with his head on one of the overstuffed pillows.

“I’ll ring for tea,” Darvish says, sighing at the stretch of his muscles as he stands.

The servants don’t tend to come up to the tower unless asked; Darvish had worried at first it was because they were afraid — of him, of Chandra, hell, even of Aaron and his fair skin — but Fadi had eased his concerns with a surprised laugh and a promise that it was out of respect for their privacy and little else.

Honestly, it hadn’t taken as long as Darvish had expected for the three of them to settle into Chandra’s homestead, dancing around each other as much as the staff as they’d worked out the technicalities of their new life, and he’s grateful for it. Chandra’s father hadn’t seemed at all surprised by Aaron’s permanent place in their household, and Darvish wonders more and more if the thanks he’d received had been for giving his daughter the only sort of marriage she would ever have agreed to willingly. 

Aba, too, is utterly unfazed at finding Aaron slipping from ‘Darvish’s' room of a morning, in search of tea and bread. More often than not, Chandra’s awake at the same time, opening the door from the adjoining room with a clatter and Darvish can hear her greeting Aaron warmly as Aba makes noises about her wandering around in her sleep clothes, hair unbrushed.

( “It’s only Aaron,” she’d said the first time, slipping her head onto his shoulder with a yawn, and Aba’s words had caught, eyes wide.

“Oh,” she’d said, gathering herself. “Well then. If it’s only Aaron…” )

The tea is with them barely minutes later along with warm pastries and the cheerful smile of a young housemaid. Darvish thanks her and promises himself he’ll learn the names of all the staff by the new year; Aaron, of course, already does, and though Chandra stumbles occasionally, she’s been around most of these people her entire life. It’s not _competition_ , it’s that this already feels more like _home_ than Ischia ever did.

He slides the tray onto the low table by the fire and serves, adding more sugar than necessary to Aaron’s cup just to coax another smile, before nudging Aaron’s shoulder until he sits up enough to make space for him. The crackle of the flames is surprisingly soothing considering their history, and Darvish wonders if it’s because they remind him of Aaron, dangerous and alive and necessary. 

( “You never looked,” Chandra had said once, the chaos of wedding plans paused for a blissful moment of reminiscing. “He danced for you and you never _looked_.”

“What did he look like?” he’d asked, regret seeping into his bones even as he promised to find every opportunity for Aaron to dance again.

“Like fire,” she’d said after a moment, and he’d felt her awe in every word. “Like the beat of the drum and the sway of the flames. Like _magic_.” )

Chandra throws her book onto the pile at her feet, reaching for the sweets and licking butter from her fingers before it drips, sighing happily.

Darvish slides his arm across the back of the sofa, deliberate but unassuming, and bites back a grin when Aaron leans into it. It’s still a surprise, this casual intimacy, and Darvish feels like he’s walking on eggshells so much of the time, trying to be honest and good and _enough_ , acclimatising to the _newness_ of it, so different from everything he’s ever known. 

Aaron rests his head against the curve of Darvish’s neck and it means more than any tumble between sheets he’s ever had.

“Urgh,” Chandra says as Darvish presses a kiss to Aaron’s temple, and Darvish snorts out a laugh.

“Well come on then,” he says, and Chandra pouts her resistance for only a couple of seconds before moving to join them, slipping in under Darvish’s other arm and throwing her legs over his until her toes are curled up under Aaron’s thigh.

“Father wants to know if we’ll have dinner with him this week,” she says after a while, when the shared heat of their bodies has started to rival that of the fire. A flick of her fingers and the flames die down enough that they don’t need to move. 

_Wizards_ , Darvish thinks. _Who knew they could be so useful?_

Aaron groans. “The moment the two of you leave, Aba tries to feed me the entire kitchen store.”

It’s an empty argument; Aaron had turned into Aba’s favourite almost as soon as she’d come to her own conclusions about the three of them, and he’s unerringly fond of her in return.

“Don’t be silly,” Chandra says, looking neither of them in the eye, “you’re invited too.”

Darvish feels Aaron still and knows his own face has slipped into an expressionless mask. 

“Oh for—” Chandra says, rolling her eyes. “Stop being so paranoid. It’s a genuine invitation. Father…knows how important Aaron is, to _both_ of us. We’re a _family_.”

She says it so easily it threatens to take Darvish’s breath away. _Of course_ they’re a family. They have been since the moment they set off on an impossible quest and found themselves and each other along the way. It’s just—

It’s just that, whilst _they_ know that Aaron’s as much a part of this marriage as Darvish and Chandra, they’d never expected the casual acceptance of that fact by others. It’s one thing to fall into bed with both men and women (though Chandra has no desire to join them outside of the occasional request for warmth on a cold night when she forces Darvish to don sleep clothes before she’ll enter the room and slip into the space they make for her, talking about her spells until her eyes close between one word and the next) and another entirely to accept wedlock between three people.

Besides, Chandra’s relationship with her father is still raw, only just beginning to thread itself back together however much they both want it, and neither Darvish nor Aaron want to do anything to jeopardise that. 

Secrets are dangerous things, but they have each other to spill the burdens to, and that’s enough.

“Do you really think we’re fooling _anyone?_ ” Chandra says when they’ve been quiet too long. She’s staring at them with incredulous eyes, and Darvish wonders when she became so wise. “I’d wager every spell book I own that the entire estate knows perfectly well what we are to each other.”

“But—” Aaron says, and Darvish turns his gaze to Aaron’s frown and the shadows of his past that threaten to darken his eyes. 

“But nothing,” Chandra says, cutting him off before self-doubt and his father’s hateful heart can settle. “No one _cares_. Haven’t you noticed how the servants all treat you with the same regard as Darvish? _More_ regard, sometimes. They all like you.” She shoots Darvish an apologetic look he shrugs off, hoping she knows how grateful he is that she can see Aaron’s moods as clearly as he nowadays. “That’s not to say they don’t love you, too,” she says to him, prodding his arm with her finger. “It’s just that you’re a _prince_ , and they’re worried about being too familiar.” 

“I imagine Aaron would worry about them being too familiar as well,” Darvish says with a wink, letting humour take away some of the lingering tension.

Aaron rolls his eyes, and just like that everything’s all right again. “The only people who get to be _familiar_ with you are sat on this sofa,” he says, and Chandra buries her laugh in Darvish’s shoulder.

“I’ll tell Father we accept his invitation,” Chandra says when the silence has reached companionable levels once more, and Aaron’s jaw tightens briefly before he nods. Darvish wonders if he knows how brave he is and vows to tell him so later when they’re alone.

“I should go to bed,” Chandra says mournfully, a yawn crashing over her, and Darvish chuckles, nudging her chin with a loose fist and pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“Goodnight,” Aaron says as Chandra reaches forward to wrap her arms around his neck.

“Don’t stay up too late,” she warns as she takes her leave, and Aaron waves in promise before resting his head back against Darvish’s shoulder.

“Is it really that easy?” he asks when Chandra’s footsteps have faded away. Darvish leans closer until it feels like he and Aaron are the only two people in the world, a sphere of the universe cut out just for them.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “Does it matter if it is?”

Aaron sighs against his neck, an imprint of damp heat that feels as intimate as a kiss. “No,” he says eventually, like he’s thought through every possibility and settled on the only answer that rings true. “Not as long as the three of us have each other.”

Darvish lifts Aaron’s chin and presses a gentle kiss to the curve of his lips.

“We always will,” he says, and knows without a shadow of a doubt that it’s the truth.


End file.
